Our far-flung nuclearweapons factories haven'tbuilt a bomb
since 1992.One lone Republicanwants to shut them down.
By Zachary Roth
I n 1942,die United Statesgovernment began creating a
secret city. On 59,000acresin die hills of eastern Ten-
nessee,it built a complex -one of dtree nationwide -
dedicatedto dte production of marerials for an atomic
weapon. From dte start, the very existenceof dte new city,
named Oak Ridge after a nearby mountain ridge, was
shrouded in mystery. Though at its peak of production
during World War II, Oak Ridge used one-sevendi of all
die electricity produced in die United States and had a
population of 75,000- making it die fifdt largest city in
Tennessee- it didn't appear on mapsuntil 1949.Residents
were required to wear idenrification badges whenever
they went out of die house, and the Oak Ridge high
school football team played only road games.But diere
wasgood reasonfor die clandestinemeasures:By late 1943,
Oak Ridge'sY-12plant wasusingelectrom agnetism to cre-
ate the highly enriched ur.mium that would be used in dte
"Little Boy" atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in
1945,helping to bring die ~ to an end.
For Oak Ridge, those were die glory days,and the city
works hard to keep their memory a1iw..A museum in
town educatesa few stray tourists on Oak Ridge'sstarring
role in the deYelopmentof the bomb. Visitors to dte com-
plex are given a CD-ROM - "Discover World War
Two's Secret City" -whose cover shows Oak Ridgers
excitedly displaying newspapers that hail the end of the
war. Last June, to commemorate the 6Od1anniversary of
the event, Oak Ridge held a "Secret City Fesriwl, "which
feamred,among other attrActions,d1eopening to the pub-
lic ofY -12'5Beta-3 building, which had been used during
die war to separate isotopes, and whiclt still contains
cratesbearing the date of the plant's first year in operation.
"Looks just like it did in 1943,"saysBill Wtlbum, die pub-
lic relations representative for BWXT, a private contrac-
tor that runs Y -12,aswe look down on Beta-3from a near-
by ridge. Oak Ridge's starring role in history continued
into the Cold War, when die arms race with die Soviet
Union required rapid weapons production. hldeed, dri-
ving around dte wst facility with die £lacksfeltvaguely like
being in one of diose military mom from die 1950s."Irs
like stepping back into history," notes SteveWyatt, Y -12'5
Zad\aryRodtisaneditorof 7he~ Month!)!
16 Marm 2006
public affairs manager.
Unfortunately, history is about the only thing going
.for Y-u these days.The United Stateshasn't built a new
nuclear weapon since the early '90s, and that's left the
weapons plant's 6,000 employees with little to do. Today,
they are literally moving material from one spot to
another, spending around $300 million to transfer Y-U's
store of radioactive metal from six separateon-site loca-
tions to one more modern and secure facility, Cllnently
under construction. Y -u lists its main role as ensuring
that the components used in our existing stockpile of
weapons remain safe and reliable -an important task,
to be sure, but not one capable of providing a long-tenD
mission for Y-l2
Even the plant's physical appearnnce~ its better
days are behind it. An unmistakable air of ennui and
decay hangsabout the place.A few solitary workers shuf-
£Ie from one building to another. Many of the original
~ - their biocky,red-brdstyieand bwceilings
characteristicofl940s ~t ard1itecmre- remain
in use, despite the appearnnceof decay."It's a lot of old
facilities, no question," saysWyatt.
Y-U's fuSty aura is indicative of a broader problem.
Our nuclear weapons complex was designed for the
needs of a different age, and has struggled to reinvent
itself for the 21stcentury. Almost 20 years after we built
our last new nuclear weapon, the National Nuclear
Security Ad ministration (NNSA), a semi-autonomous
agency within the Departtnent of Energy with a budget
of $9 billion per year,continues to operate eight separate
facilities, employing over 36,000 people, and offering an
unnecessarily large number of targets to terrorists.
Indeed, in 2005,the federal government spent one and a
half times asmuch on our weaponscomplex, adjusted for
inflation, as our average annual spending during the
Cold War, for a greatly reduced set of activities. In short,
our nuclear weapons complex is unsafe, costly, ineffi-
cient, and largely without purpose.
Last summer, a congressionally-mandated report pro-
duced by a blue-ribbon taskfolre of expertsfound that
reducing the number of sites we operate would save
money, improve security, and make the complex better
ableto produce rlJenextgeDerdtion of nuclear weaponsd1e
Unired Statrs may someday need.It WAS me kind of report
you Inight think ~ officials would have seized on.
After all, at me rime, me Bush White House and GOP
co~ooalleaders were in tense negotiations over how
to reduce me president'smassivebudget deficit. Desperate
cong1'l'S5ionalleaderswere targeting student k>ans,Med-
icaid -anydting they could think of to saveprecious dol-
lars and restore their party's reputation as me standard-
bearer of small government. The news,then, that by shut-
tering diJapidaredand Jargelyredundant pernment facil-
itrs, d1eycoukl savebillX>ns,wbi]e making Americans safer
against a terroriSt attack, ought to have been hernlded.
Indeed, at a similar moment of fiscal panic during the
19905,Congress and me Clinton White House agreed to
help the DefenseDepartment adapt to me post -Cold War
world by crearing an independent commission to recom-
mend ~ ck>Singof obsolete military bases.But ~ rime,
Congress and the adtninistration reacted to the DOE
weaponscomplex report with studied indifference, and in
some cases,outright hostility.
Sitting ducks
"1 can't emphasize enough the degree to whiclt these
facilities arearchaic," saysDavid Overskei, who headed the
task fotre that loolred at restructuring the complex. At y-
u, according to a manager at another facility, workers at
one point had to wear hard hats indoors becauseof the risk
of piecesof the ceiling becoming dislodged. His own site,
too, he adds, is "falling apart... . There's buildings that
wouldn't passany buikling code known to man."
Oak Ridge,Tennessee.which helped produce the atom bomb. circa 1950
It's not surprising that many of the &cilities aredegrad-
ing. Like their counterparts in the former Soviet Union,
America's nuclear weapons siteswere largely designed aIKl
built half a century ago for a Mr that ~ long ended.Fkt-
ed officials don't have the incentive to spmd the wst sums
it would take to properly maintain these facilities. Yet nei-
ther do they have the political cournge to pull the fiscal
plug entirely on individual sites,and put tens of thousands
of employees out of work:.
The fact that the complex consistsof eight separAtesites
in sevenstates,all of them represented by lawmakers ded-
icatedto protect d1osejobs, makesthe job of shutting them
down even tougher. There are two major design labs, the
Los Alamos National Labo1'31Oryin Los Alamos, N. M.;
and the Lawrence Livennore National Laboratory in Liv-
ermore, Calif. There are also six other sites-located, in
addition to Oak Ridge, in Albuquerque, N. M.; southern
Nevada;Amarillo, Texas;KansasCity, Moo;and near Aiken,
s. c. -whim handle wrious parts of the design, produc-
tion, testing, maintenance, and safeguarding of our
weapons stockpile and its components.
In the early years,there were good reasonsto disperse
the complex around the country and to create separate
facilities for different functions. Doing so helped defend
ag;Iinst espionageand fostered a spirit of healthy compe-
tition. The approam worked brilliandy during the race for
an atomic weapon to defeat Hider and Hirohito, aswell as
for much of the Cold War that followed when the us.
arms buildup successfully deterred the Russians and
helpedkeepthe peace~ "Labs Behaving Badly" p.l<J).
But once the Soviet Union fell, the far-flung complex
t
f
~
~
TheWashiootonMonthly 17
bt its primary ~ d'etre-tbough a number of vital d1epotentialdeadttoll m thee\'entof a ~ attack
tasks remain. Maintaining the stOCkpile requires small- even higher.
~ prodocb)n of ~ ~ pans, asd1eexisting parts The Y-12 piant,meanwbi Je,sitSm a wlley between two
agearKl<mr. ArvJ ~ ~ may well require us to buikI high ridges.Security experts agreethat ~ k»Ca00nmakes
a whole new~ bon of weapons-with modem capa- ~ oompa ~ to an attack dtat usessnipers OIl dJe
bilities-in the not-too-distant future. We aOOneed to higher ground to . out security guards,al1owing others
protectoor existingStOCkp~of ahnostlO,DOO ~ - at ground ~ tn gain a(x:eS5tn~ nuclear material con-
asweDasd1ehighly ~ "specialnuclearmaterial" t2ined m die facility.
used in their creation - from &lling into the wrong Then there's the &1tr;x site m Amarillo, 1exas. It's
hands.ArvJ our weapons labs house the advancednuclear k»Cateddirectly beside~ k>Ca1 airport. greadyi1x:reasing
scieJlceresearcl1d1at is crucial to ensuring dlat the Unit- d1edwM:es of a plane-whether through terrorism or an
ed Statesretaim its competitive edgein dY; fr:kt, and to d1e accident-crashing intn facilities that contain nuclear
long-teml successof the weapons program. materials. (This is perl1apsnot as unlikely as it sounds. A
But with no ongoing p~ of ~ ~ , and, woman who li\Ied near &1rex for Inany}'eaIS tnkJ me that
after Sep~ 11, 2001, with nucbr terrorism a newiy- guardsonceadmittedthey'd~ areportof a plane
urgent threat, there is now little reason to have numerous crashing inside the &cility but couldn\ locate it, and asked
sepanre sites scattered acrossd1ecounn-y. For one iliing, for her help.)
d1e dispersal of sites significantly compro~ nuclear As d1ereport by ~'s taskforcedryly put it,
security. There is no realistic ~ of terrorists St1';aling "Currently, me [Livermore], [Los Alamos], Y -12,and &1-
a prefabricatEdnucbr weapon from any do~ site,but tr;x sitesaresufficien tly ~ tn ~tial and commercial
another alarming ~ty hassecurity experts worrm. structures sum dJatany pan]ally ~ rem:.'ist att2ck
Six of d1e eight NNSA-run sites (the excepti<msare the OIl these sites may canse coIIatenl damage tn die mr -
KansasCity site,which is little more than a warehousethat rounding civilian population and associatedpublic and pri-
makes electronic components, and Sawnnah River in vate assets."
Soud1 Carolina) contain ~ugh special nuclear materi- ~ leavinggeognp hK:aland 1aOO-~ ~ ~ ~
al-mostdangerou sly,weapons-gradeurmium -to a1bw Ieve1of security at our nuclear facilities is inadequate. In
for the creation of an Improvised Nuclear Devitt (IND), 2003,a one-ton truck: crastm d1rough d1esecurity fence
a crude nudear explosi\Jethat ~ potentially be det0- atLiwernlOre, ~ ~ ~ huMtM Yd1'dsingJe d1e
nated ~ a ~'eapoosfacility wid1in minutes. By simply &cility ~ ~ stopped by security gna1ds.A report
dropping a lOO-pound mass of highly enriched umlium released soon after 9/l1 by d1e Project on~ merit
onto another similar ~ from a height of about six feet, ~t, a watd1do9;group in CODaIltation wid! federal
tem:>ristscouJd create a nucbr reaction that wookI pro- go\IeI'nmmt security ~ a.duded: "The I::)epan-
duce a blast of about 5-10 kilotons-the blast from the mmtci is.. tn rotectdleAmer-
~ atoo1k:bomb WdS15kilottX1s.sum an aplosM:m X:an tenorist
Its ~~ 0 a
Guards at ~ ~ on ~are
kill aD}'ODewid1in 2 ki1ometeIS- whrl1 at some
~

~
facilities ~ ~ ~ of ~ of peop~-accord- ~~~~~i~~~
-iaa:~ ~~~ ~ a:-
ing to Fmlk Van Rippel, a physicist and nucbr expert at ~
PriIK.:etonUnivezsity.
Cunendy, a scenario in wbX:h trnorists ~ success-
fully storm a fAcility, gain aa:essto the nuclear materials,
=c ~
noted that ~
~=~~:E~:;rotect
.
.
a ~ terroriStatta~ The report also
~
attacks
ID(H'e d1an 50 Pe11:entof ~ time
mock-taroriscs
~e%p~~~has
.

and have enough time to set off an IND app~ highly m -p ~ report, pro-
unlikely, but not im~Je. And because the conse- d1:K:ed for NNSA by a team ~ by retiIed admir3l Richani
quenceswould be so cat2Strophjcally high, it's a ~ Mies and ~ m M2f ofJast}'ear confirmed dtat ~
that security experts take seriously. Matthew Bunn, who almost four ~ after 9/ll, "The NNSA mterprise Jacks
direds d1eProjecton MAruigingd1e Atom at Harvaro's a comp~ strategic security pJan."
Kennedy SdlOOI ofGO\lem ment, caDsit "a very ~ There is ~ agreemrnt that ~lidating all spe-
concern." cial nuclear material mtn one well-guarded site wonkI
The problem is made scarier still by the fact d1atmany make us significantly safer.~ Spencer Abraham, d1en
of oor CUImlt f3ci1ita aresimplyin poorgeograpbX:~- ~ seaet3Jy of ~ ~ d:Ierisk:~t m hav-
~ for storingnuclearmaterialsin a post-9/Il ~.At ing specialnuclearmaterialspreadIQt)SS die country,
Li\leImore, for ~ d1e eXDd>an fringe of theBayAla declaring ma May 2004 speech that, becauseof security
has spread so far east siIK:e d1e 19505 that d1ere are now corK:ems, "we need tn...reduce ~ number of sites with
OOmcsdino;ctly~dlestreetfromdlelab's~line, special~ materiaI tn dieabsohIte minimum,consis-
and only 800 yaMs from the facility's Superblock, whid1 tent with carrying out our missions."
~ its store of plutonium. That prevents some guards Doing so wonkl also savemoney. For good reason,any
from carrying die kiOO of powerful automatic ~ site that cont2ins weapons-qumtities of nuclear materials
wiekIed by d1eir counterparts at odw;r sites,and alsomakes -which couldbe aslittle as5 pounds-must recei\Ie

18 Mard12<&
high-level protection. That means storing
nuclear materials at six sites could cost, in
effect, six times asmuch asstoring d1em all at
one. And since 9/11 -when it became clear
that terrorists might be willing to kill them-
selves in the course of an attack-facilities
have had to devise a plan to handle each and
eVeIYnew scenariodlat seaJrity experts imag-
ine ten-orists might attempt. As a result,
NN~ security costs haveskyrocketed from
$885million in the year before 9/ll, to over $14
billion in 2005.
Machine politics
But aside&om the issuesof cost and secu-
city, the labs suffer &om a more existencial
problem -a lack of purpose. Researd1,stor-
age,maintenance, and security are important
tasks, but NNSA has yet to give the labs a
long-term, defming mission since we tested
our last new weapons in 1992That's]eft many
weapons scientiStS,particularly at Los Alam-
os and ~ore, in a stateof anxiety over die
furore of their jobs. They've reacted by turn-
ing theInselves into experts on the federnl
government's grant-making process, and
applying for funding for new projects and
technologies -some only tangentially relat-
ed to weaponsdesign.For its part, dIe Depart -
ment of Energy -as well as odler agencies
that fund some projects, like d1eDepartments
of Defense and Homeland Security - is
inclined to grant d1eserequests,recogni7.ing
the ~ to keep die scientistSat dteir jobs and
to keep federal dollars flowing to dIe labs,
should their weapons-design skills be needed
in the fu mre.
Many of these new projects have come
about over the last decade.When die Clinton
administration agreed to stop testing nuclear
weaponsin 1993,it entered into a bargain with
dIe labs,which feared rl1at the end of nuclear
production and testing could make them
redundant. Without support from the labs,
the administration knew that the test ban
would never get through Congress.So the lab
directors agreed to publicly support dIe ban,
in return for receiving a slew of rew tedmol-
ogy that they said was needed to assurethe
ongoing safety of the stockpile in the absence
of testing.Livermore, for instance,receivOOthe
National Ignition Facility (NIF), a facility
rl1at fires laser beams at radioactive hydrogen
fud pellets, in orner to StUdythe effects of a
nuclear fusion explosion. Los Alamos, for its
part, got the Dual Access Radiographic
Labs Behaving Badly
, In thek>Dg andstoriedhistOryofbmeaucratic
infighting,fewcon-
tests have been more vitriolic than the one between our two major
nuclear weapons design Jabs,Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore.
The antagonjsm bas its roots in the relationship between the two
fathers of dte atomic plOgrdID,Edwml ~ aM RobertOpp enheimer.
In the late194Os,Teller began ad\1OCatingdte immediate ~pment
of a hydrogen bomb, in response to the news d1at Russia had built an
atomX:
~ ~ ~er remained
morecautious,
and~ soon
became convinced d1at Los Alamos, whose director, Norris Bradbury,
was an Op~_~_mer ally, wasinSlJfficiently dedicated to dJe H-bomb
project.With the helpof Ernest~ a NobelPrize-winning
physicist aI¥l Califomja scientific entrep~, 1eller persuaded Con-
gressto createa second design lab in Livemt~ Cali£, wbid1 woukl go
I full-speed ahead on the H-bomb project. From dJe st3rt, scientiStSat
i {A)SAlamos felt undermined by and resentful offilJer and hjs ~ &ril-
I
, ity, whid1 they saw asradjcal and potmtiallydangerou s. Livermore sci-
entiSts,for their part, saw their counterparts at Los Alamos as stodgy
andrisk- ~
When the H-bomb waseventuallyproduced,Livermorewas
~ most of the credit. This infuriated scientists at Los Alamos, who
I
had in fact run the thermonuclear tests that had helped pave the way
for dJe bomb.
The ultimate truth, say historians, is that the rancor was proba-
bly worth it: Thanks to competition be~ the two labs, America
more quickly produced dJe H-bomb, and therefore had a more
effective deterrent against the Soviet Union sooner.
The ~tK: competition is not alwaysproductiv\;~. At
the end of the Co~ War, ~re scientists ~ the {A)SAIam-
os design for the W88 warlJead.They concluded, wrongly asit nImed
out, d1at dte design W"dS
unsafe, and advised agaimt buikIing it, a judg-
ment that was ~ at Los Alamos asa slap in the face. But having
sepaI2tedesign labs,and a relationship of competition - eren ant2g-
onism - between them, does make it easierfor outsiders to gain access
to infonnatioo mn dw:jr~ ings. "HI Wdntto hear what's wrong
with dJe NIF at Livermore, my best option is to go to people at Los
Alamos," saysHugh GuSterson,an Mrr anthropoklgist who stndies dte !
cuIb1reof the weapons labs.~ if I want to hear what's wrong with dte
DAHRT at Los Alamos, fn go to people at Livermore."
H elected officials ever get around to consolidating our weapons
complex, they'll have to decide whether to also consolidate the
design labs. (The production facilities largely work on separate
aspects of the process, so dJere'sno real competition taking place.)
The Overskei report neither recommended nor discoUrAged con-
solidating the two labs into one. But some members of the task force
: privately support such a step - which would almost certainly mean
shuttering ~rmore, the smaller of the two. Doing so wou~ not
only provide the cost and security improvements associated with
consolidation of special nuclear material. It would also, in all likeli-
hood, make it easier to ~uce the number of weapons scientists
employed by me complex - aM therefore me amount of federal
money for "make-work" designed solely to keep those scientists busy.
The question will be whether these adwntages will outWeigh the hen-
efits of competition. - Ucb." Roth
The Washington Monthly 19
Hydrodynamic Test (DARHT), whim uses giant x-ray
machines to create ~ of mock nuclear weapons.
But asit's turned out. the technology required for vir-
mal testing costs more, not less,d1an actUal testing. The
Jabsalmost certam1y undersold the cost of many of me
new machines. The NIF, for instance, was estimated at
$677 million in 1993.In 1997;DOE requested from Con-
gress$L2 billion for construction, promising there would
be no further increases. Four years later, me General
Accounting Office (GAO) estimated the NIFs construc-
tion price tag to be $41 billion. And aninde pendent analy-
sis in the sameyear put the total cost of constructing and
operating the NIF for 30 years-as NNSA. intends -at
$32.4billion. "DOE lied to me," said an outl'"clgedSenator
Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on me floor of the Senatein Sep-
tember 2000. "They sold me a bill of goods and I am not
happy about it" Ste\'enSdIwartz.,a nuclear expert who for-
merly edited me Bulletin of me Atomic Scientistsand has
been a Brookings InstitUtion scholar, argues,only semi-
facetiously,mat ifwe real1ywant to savemoney, we should
resume full-scale testing and production of weapons.
These costs mjght be acceptableif we mew what we
were getting for our money. But becausefAcilities like the
NIF are designed more to increase our overall under-
standing of nuclear-weapons science d1an to perform
specific tests,it's difficult for non -scientists to assesstheir
utility. That makesit hard for outside overseerslike Con-
gressto oppose requestsfor new technology. When Pill.
physicists say they need anomer machine to assured1e
safety of our weapons stockpile, most lawmakers are
inclined to trust mem.lndeed, it's now all but imp~Dle
for Congress to get an independent viewpoint on ques-
tions mat require tedmical and scientific expertise: Until
1995,members could hare consulted me federal Office of
Technology Assessment.But in mat year, then-House
Speaker Newt Gingricllied an effort mat abolished the
agency.
Still, at leastmachines like the NIF and me DAHRT
can be said to advance me long-term mjssion of our
nuclear program. Some lab scientistshave ~ grants
to fund projects wim no clear relation to weapons pro-
duction, whatsoever.Grant Heffelfin~, a weapons sci-
entist at Sandia,sayshe'sworking on sequencing proteins
for microbes. Odter scientists have studied me human
genome,and global warming.
It's not mat the work isn't word1While-few scientific
issuesare more wgent d1anglobal warming, after all. But
it doesn't make sense for this work to be done by our
nuclear facilities, radter d1an by me many advanced sci-
entific agencies-like me National Oceanographic and
Annospheric Association, and me Scripps Institute-
run or funded by me federal government. "I would never
have picked Los AJamos or Sandia or Livennore to get
involved wim the genome," says~ "It was make-
work from the DOE...not based on inherent ability or
expertise."Peter Stockton, a nuclear expert who was a top
aide to energy secret3ry Bill Richardson during me '90's
20 Mard12006
and now works for the Project on Government Over-
sight,agreesthat the work is designedmainly for "keep-
ing theseguysb~ Our weaponscomplex,then, is get-
ting further and further from its core mission. Adds
Overskei:"The questionbecomes,at what point do you
loseyour focus?"
Hobson's choice
One of the few people in WashingtOn who wants to fix
the problems of our nuclear weapons compa is David
Hobson, a little-known Republican congressman from
Ohio who d1airs the House Energy and Water subcom-
mitree that overseesNNSA and the complex. Hobson, a
slight, bespectacled, and resolutely unglamorous man,
has the aw-shucks demeanor of the Midwestern small
business-owner he once was.He says"Warshingtolf for
Washington and makes little jokes about the French, and
about the officiousness of the bureaucrats who brief him.
"I WdSteda whole day at Stratcomm, "he said - referring
to the Pentagon's Strategic Commandoffice-during a
speech at the Center for American Progress (CAP), a lib-
eral Washington think tank, laSt December. "Too many
flip-charts. I ahnost left."
But Hobson has used his regular-guy persona-and
his reputation as a fiscal conservative-to push for a
safer, more modern, more efficient, less expensive com-
plex..He has publicly accused the labs of running "jobs-
preservation programs" for scientists. In the process, he
has mrned himself into public enemy number one at the
labs. In his speech at CAP, Hobson recounted how,
when he visited one facility recently, he caught sight of a
list headed "Cha11enges:"One item was the single word
"Hobson."
After assumingthedJai rmanship of the subcommittee
in 2003,Hobson and his Staffbecame concerned that Y-
12'splan to build a new, above-ground stornge facility for
its special nuclear materialswasinadequatefor the height-
ened-threat emIironment of the post 9/ll world. Instead of
spending hundreds of millions to move the plant's SNM
from six separateon-site locations to one, they thought,
why not take a wide-angle look. at our entire weapons
complex, and consider consolidating all the SNM cur-
rently spread across the complex into one new, bdow-
ground ~tion? To that end, Hobson browbeat Abra-
ham, then d1esecretary of energy, into agreeing to pro-
duce a report that wouJd ~1!1Jne complex-wide consol-
idation.
The 0veISkei report-also known asthe Secretary of
Energy Advisory Board (or SEAB) report-was pro-
duced by a task.foIt:e ofdisti nguished nuclear, scientific,
engineering, and management experts, reporting direct-
ly to the secretary of energy. When it came out laStJuly,
16 months after Abraham's appearance before the sub-
committee, d1ereport called the current weapons com-
plex ~ robUSt,nor agile, nor responsive,with little
evidence of a master plan." It recommended consolidat-
ing all special nuclear material into one loca-
tion, asa way to improve security and cut costs.
That essenria1ly meant CO[ISOlidating d1ecom-
pla's entire production capability -current-
ly spread across six sites- into one.'n lOugb
the report didn't explicitly say so, die clear
implication of its recommendations was dtat
some of the production sites -most likely Y -
U at Oak Ridge, Kat1sasCity, and ultimareiy
Pdnrex,should be shutrered entirely.
The report estimated dtat consolidation
would likely savearound $25 billion between
now and 2030.Each year dtat consolidation is
postponed would reduce savings by $2 bil-
lion. Consolidation would also improve the
responsiveness, speed, and quality of the
entire production process, the panel found.
That's partly because being dispersed
around the country makes it difficult to
effectively integrate the various facets of the
production process. It's also because the
existing production sites,built in die '40s and
'50s,are too old to quickly and efficiently pro-
duce weapons for the 21st century- A new
production facility with state-of-the-art
technology would reduce delaysand re-wott;
cut environmental pollution, provide a safer
work environment; and leave the complex
less dependent on the highly-trained, aging
workforce it currently employs. Says Don
'"fi'()St, a member of Overskas task: force and
a vice president ofTechsource, a science and
engineering consulting flnn: "You put all
these benefits together, and if this were yom
company, and it were yom dollars being
invested -which frankly it is, my friend-
you'd say:'no-bmner.m
BRAC to the future
Hobson said immediately mat he agreed
with the Overskei report "100 pen:ent." But
he W3San army of one. The press virtually
ignored it. Congress, NNSA, DOE, and the
White House spent the next six months
doing virnJally nothing to put its recom-
mendations into practice. And one powerful
lawmaker tried to have the report taken out
back and shot.
SeD.Pete Domenici (R-NM~ chairs the
Senateenergy committee, whidt ~ the
nuclear complex. It's a convenient job for the
senior senatorfrom New Mexico becausethat
statehasmore federal go..'ernmentemployees,
per capita, than any other in the union; and
most of those employeeswork at New Mexi-
co'stwo weaponslabs,Los Alamos and Sandia.
America's bomb-making process,
brought to you by Rube Goldberg
H me United St3tes government were to resume building nuclear
weapons today, me process would be a cross-country odyssey. The
individual bomb parts would have to navel thousands of miles across
me nation. with each journey being an invit3tion for a radioactive
accident or a terrorist attack.
The process wouJd probably begin in a boardroom at the Los
Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Some of the 1ab'smore
than IOpOO physicists wouJd first create a basic plan for dte new
bomb. They would decide on me weapon's size, me materials to be
used in its COOSt1'1lction,and the exact process for how to catalyze its
nuclear reaction. Then, scientists at Los Alamos and our second
major design lab, in Livennore, Calif., would together make an exact
blueprint of the bomb design. Computer scientists at both labs
would run the design specifications through supercomputer mod-
ding software to help polish them for maximum efficacy.
Then, me stage would shift to me Sandia National Laboratories
outSide of Albuquerque, NM. Having received an electronic copy of
the bomb's blueprint from Los Alamos, Sandia engineers would
design everything else for die weapon, from its aluminum casing to
its parachute to me high exp1osi\led1a1geneeded to set off me nuclear
reaction.
Next stop, via a high-security military aircraft, would be the Y-
12site in 1ennessee.where engineers would begin building die ura-
nium shell, or tamper, for the bomb. TheI1 it's off, by heavily armed
nil or truck convoy, to me Savannah River site in South Carolina.
There, technicians trained in handling nuclear materials would add
me tritium or deuterium composites that turn a plain old fission
bomb into a massive thermonuclear fusion bomb.
The sbeIl and its ndioacrivc materialswouH then ~ their route
westwaIrl by nil or truck, headed for me Pantexweapons plant outSide
ofAmari&,1:eIas.
Thatplantwoukl. ~ IeCei\Jed
theadV3Ix:ed
eIecttonics parts from the Kansas City factory that makes all me cir-
cuitry for nuclear weapons. At P.mteX,tecl1nicianswould take plutoni-
um and other weapons parts and ~ the live bomh
But the journey wouldn't end there. The finished bomb would
then be shipped from Texas to me Nevada Nuclear Testing Site,
where it would be buried deep in me earth, covered with a plug of
thousands of tons of cement, and ignited -in contravention of the
Nuclear Test Ban 'Ii-eaty. Assuming me explosion went as expected,
engineers at the Nevada site would give me go-ahead for full-scale
prodUction of the bombs at Pantex.As each weapon was finished and
certified in Texas, it would then head by rail, plane, ship or truck to
its (perhaps temporary) resting place - military basesaround the
world.
Producing a weapon using eight different sites wouJd require us
to regularly ship radioactive materials across the country, within a
few miles of large population centers. That greatly increases the risk,
and the potential consequences, of an accident or a successful ter-
rorist attack. Though there's reason to believe that nuclear materi-
als are inadequately protected within our nuclear facilities, they're
likely to be even more exposed when mveling on open public roads.
-SamJaffi
The washington Monthly 21
A wily veteran of the appropriations process,Domenici
has, during the 11years of his committee chairmanship,
sttuCnIred that appropriations processso asto maximize
fimding for the complex -and particularly for his state's
&ci1ities. He fought hard, for instance, to bring to Sandia
the Microsystems and Engineering Sciences Applica-
tions (}."1ESA) prognm, which manufactures oomputer-
drip scaJedevices."There5 a number of programs that are
doing quite well in the state of New Mexico," says
~ "Non-nuclear projects. But they still went into
his facilities."
Domenici opposed the Overskei report from the start.
"While there is aiWdYS room for improvement, I beIieve
our labs are doing good worlc, and I do not think we
should rush into any quick fixes," he said in a statement
after the report wasrebsed. He men inserted languagein
his committee report barring the use of funds to imple-
ment any of the report's recommendations. Though that
languagewasultimately struck: in conference,it conveyed
the firmness of Domenici's opposition to reform and set
the tone for dte conferencenegotiations.When all wassaid
and done, Congress' budget for dle fiscal year 2006 con-
tained just $5 million to study consolidation.
Domenici is not acting entirely alone in Congress-
many members of dle New Mexico delegation havemade
cootinued funding for the labsa life-or-deam ~ When
the House Armed Services committee also suggested
studying consolidation in 2002, it was forred to drop the
ideaamid 1mbendingopposition from one of its members,
Rep.Heather WIlson (R -NM).
To some observers, there's more than a little irony in
the sight of conservative politicians going to me mat to
protect ~t jobs. Saysone high-nmking nuclear
facility manager."They're all red stareswho don't like gov-
ernment. But you try touching one of their complexes,
saying 'this thing is really irrelevdnt and we should close
it down,' and these guys sound like bleeding heart liber-
aJs:'Don't you dare touch one of our jobs.'"
Such resistancecan be overcome by a president com-
mitted to reform -especially jf that president is of d1e
sameparty asd1osein control of Congress.But President
Bush'sle\le1of interest in grappJing wid1 the problems of
our weapons complex is reflected by dle fact that he has
not chosen to appoint to the National Security Council
any staff members wim a true base of knowledge and
interest in the issue."I've met widl NSC on sereral occa-
sioDS,"saysStockton, the former DOE official, "and they
don't even know what me hell a weapons complex is."
Some presidents have managed DOE by vesting
authority in strong energy secretaries,asClinton did with
me dynamic and high-profile Bill Richardson. Bush has-
n't chosento do that, either.(Quick: canyou name d1ecur-
rent Secretary of Energy? ")
The Department of Energy is also hampered by d1e
k>ngstandingculture of independence at me labs,which
*Answer:s..nueIw. 8cUnan
22Mard12006
essenriallyallows eaclt individual site to nm itseJ£Former
Los Alamos director PeteNanos has spoken of a "cowboy
culture," in whiclt weapons scientists fed free to thumb
rl1eir noses at WashingtonS efforts to exert control. In
2004, some Los Alamos scientists beg3n sporting a
bumper sticker on their cars bearing the words "Striving
for a Work-Free SafeZone." The messagewas a sarastic
rebuke to lab directors, whose new safety-conscious
approaclt-dle result of pressure from DOE officiaJs in
Washington -was, the scientists Edt, short-changing
scientific researd1.Stockton saysthat in his experience as
a top DOE official, when you tell empk}}'eesat dle facili-
ties,"we want you to do thjs, they prettymudl p you dle
fInger, saying 'we be here before you, we be here after you,
and flIck you while you're here.m
But even if DO E were able to rein in the labs,it's by no
meanscertain that it would want to. In the 1990s,Wngress
WASable to create the Base Realignment and Oosure
Commjssion to shut down military basesbecause the
Defense Department supported the move. Officials
understood that fewer basesaround dle oountry meant
more resoUIt:eSand funding for their preferred projects.
But DOE has mud1 Jessinfluence in Congress dtan does
the Pentagon, so there's no guarantee that money no
longer given to the weapons complex would go to other
departmental projects. Just as important, DOE simply
<X>esn'tdo much asidefrom manageour ~ complex.
It doesn't actually produce energy-it merely subsidizes
private producers. In fact, NNSA represents almost 40
pen:ent of the Energy Deparnnent's annual bUdget, and
providesmucltof its senseof departmental
~on. A
diminished complex meansa c1irnini~11ed DOE.
Political pressurefor refonn, then, is almost surely not
going to come from DOE -at least with d1e way the
department is CUTrendystruCb1red.The only way to cre-
ate that preSsureis to r.1dicallychange the sn-ucture.One
kIea would be to remove NNSA from DOEs (theoretical)
control and instead place it under the more powerful
Defense Department, whiclt has shown its wi l1ingnessto
fight hard for the closing of unnecessary facilities it con-
trols. There's virtually no will, however,in the Pentagonor
in Congress, to push for suclt a move.
Another idea -one that might appeal to Democrats
looking for a campaign issue-would be to give the
Energy Department a new ~on. Ramp up its author-
ity to fund alternative energy experiments, but require
that the funds come from more dlicient management of
the weapons labs.The only way to extract the necessary
billions, of course, would be to close extraneous nuclear
facilities.
The need to find alternatives to Middle Eastern oil is
arguably the greatest national security challenge of the
cunent era, jUStasdeterring Soviet communism WAShalf
a cenmry ago.How fitting it woukl be if me great weapons
facilities that so vitally served the nation in the past could
be restructuredto servethe future aswell. .
- Additional
~g bySam Jaffe